The latest side projects from interventionist pop tykes Chicks On Speed have the full on digital come-on of a fetish club fashion show at 2am and are twice as much fun. Chix-52 is a four track tribute to Georgia's cleancut disco subversives, The B-52's. It features "Give Me Back My Man", transformed into an urgent manifesto to unfulfilled lust; dancefloor biochemical contact ad "Song For A Future Generation", and the sexually overloaded "Strobelight". The insouciant charm of The B-52s' original melodies withstands the stomping and shredding dealt out by producers Gerhard Potuznik and Ramon Bauer, but it's the fragmented delirium of the final track "The Chixmachine", a flickering cut-up of half-spoken commands and technical mutterings, that will undoubtedly have you coming back for more.
KEN HOLLINGS, The Wire #202, December 2000